He also gets to enjoy California's low property taxes and high appreciation which has worked well for him. 

I'd highly recommend starting out with a house hack - whether it be a large single family in a good area or small multifamily. 

Lately I have found some excellent small business contractors that do great work without the high overhead.  

I am more focused on equity growth though, so I would like to purchase a “value add”  in a great area with a high chance of appreciation.

The last auction of treasuries also saw Russia and China buying less US debt and investor optimism is not high, and bids were like 50bps greater.

Over the years I've worked with brokers that would figure out 6 different ways to do a deal and then we'd compare them all against what the specific goal for the deal is.Mike I felt I didn’t need a broker for a simple cash out refinance but when you look at the bigger picture of the eventual purchase and go backwards to the cash out refi maybe it’s wise to use one. 

They will have a better idea as it isn't just how much you make, but how much debt you have and how much you've saved up for a down payment.Prices in Vancouver are extremely high, so I'd skip it. 

@Jack B.Tax planning for an orderly disposal can be fun and highly recommend you work with your team on this.  

Or maybe it's to help highly optimized properties justify a higher ADR and therefore higher fees?

I would try a local commercial bank, you might be able to get in the high 7s for a full doc commercial loan.